Things Needed:

• Download & Install VirtualBox (Free)
• Download & Unzip the Chrome OS image (via GDGT.com)

Update: Looks like GDGT posted a image for VirtualBox as well. However it doesn’t seem to work. Just stick to the VMWare .vmdk file for use with VirtualBox as I did. Otherwise it just loads a black screen.

That’s pretty much it. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask below!

Links: Watch This in HD on Vimeo.com

After grabbing the Delivery Status Touch from the iTunes App Store, it’s quite easy to start using. Just tap the Edit button, and click the ‘+’ icon to add a new item to track. Just about every major domestic delivery service I’ve used was listed and there are quite a few international ones as well. There’s even tracking tools for Amazon, Apple, and Google Checkout orders. Once you choose the service, you’ll have to key in the tracking number and pick a name. Fortunately since the iPhone now has copy and paste, it’s quite simple to grab the code from an email and enter it into this App. Although it might be overkill, I would truly be impressed if they added Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for use with the Camera. I would love to be able to just take a snap of the tracking number on a sheet of paper.

The home screen will display a list of the active packages you are tracking. You can manually sort them or have it automatically organized by delivery dates. Each item updates each time the App is started and will display the number of days until delivery besides each app. There’s also a one-line message of the latest status provided by the carrier and the estimated delivery date. Once delivered, the countdown will be replaced with a check mark. The items are also color coded by each company’s most prominent color. You can click on an item for further details. The map link will display the last known location of the package and your current GPS location. The entire Delivery Status Touch App has a landscape mode and there’s even a Junecloud web page to sync tracking numbers. The application is quite responsive, well polished, and easy to use. The only feature that’s missing that I would love to see in a future version is Push Notifications for deliveries, exceptions, or even progress updates.

There’s plenty of ways to track packages on the iPhone, however none are as well designed as this. If you rarely track packages, you can probably survive just fine using email updates and using the browser to check on packages. On the other hand if you are always have a number of shipments going in and out, this is an excellent tool to stay organized. It’s available for just $3 from the iTunes App Store.

Buy: Launch iTunes App Store
Links: Junecloud.com Delivery Status Touch

So what’s new with version 9.10? A Lot. It offers encryption to better protect your files. It features the latest version of the GNOME interface. The Pidgin chat client has been replaced with Empathy. A file syncing service called Ubuntu One, similar to Dropbox, is included. There’s a lot of performance improvements when it comes to startup. It also uses a new Intel Video Card architecture, the new ext4 file system, and the GRUB 2 boot loader. There’s even better power management handling. So what does that mean for average consumers? It’s more compatible and much faster than ever before.

Ubuntu 9.10 also includes plenty of graphical improvements as well. There’s a new sharp looking login screen, new wallpapers, a new default color scheme, and cleaner looking icons. When you are done using your computer, it even has a clean animation for that! I’ve used the last few iterations of Ubuntu on netbooks, laptops, old desktops, and even in VirtualBox for the past few years. It’s a great OS whether you are a programmer, a geek, or just don’t want to spend the cash on Windows 7 or Snow Leopard. Plus it’s probably the most secure and it’s something unique to show off. If you are interested in giving Ubuntu 9.10 a shot, it will become available for download on October 29th, 2009.

P.S. If you can’t wait, the Release Candidate is already available for download here.

Links: Ubuntu.com | 9.10 Release Notes

Setting up Dropbox is easy. Just visit GetDropbox.com and download the installer for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux. The program will prompt you to register for an account if you are a first time user. A folder named “My Dropbox” will automatically be created. If you have a second or third computer, install Dropbox on those and login with the same username and password. If you have an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, grab the free Dropbox App from the iTunes App Store. Next just copy any files or folders into the “My Dropbox” folder. Assuming that you are connected to the internet, the files placed in there will automatically be synced to and stored on all your other computers. If you add, delete, or modify files, the changes are relayed over to all your other devices.

The devices I used to test the service included a HP DV2000 laptop running Windows Vista and an iPod Touch. Skatter Tech’s Senior Editor, Sahas Katta, also tested the service with a Dell XPS M1530 laptop running Windows 7, a Dell Mini 9 netbook running Windows XP, an ancient Desktop running Ubuntu 9.04, and an iPhone 3GS. With Dropbox setup on all those mentioned devices, the service worked across every single device flawlessly. Dropbox is truly a cross-platform marvel.

I tested the service by dropping some documents (PDF, DOC, PPT), music (MP3, AAC), and videos (AVI, MP4) into the “My Dropbox” folder. The small document files only took a few seconds to sync and appear on the other devices, however the larger video files took a lot longer. And say you don’t have access to any of your devices, but need to get to your files. Just visit GetDropbox.com from any web browser, login, and a copy of all your files is accessible through the web interface. The service also creates quick “share links” you can email or instant message to friends to give them access to certain files or folders.

While the free version limits space to just 2GB, you can get more space in two ways. If you invite friends to use the service using the referral program Dropbox recently launched, you’ll be given more space each time someone signs up using your link. And if truly need a lot more space, Dropbox charges $10/month for a 50GB account and $20/month for a 100GB account. As someone who mainly uses for documents, which barely take up any space, the free version suffices. However with how useful the service has been for my productivity since I began using it, if I do end up needing more space I wouldn’t mind paying. Overall, Dropbox is simply a convenient, easy to use, and foolproof service that saves you the time of having to manually manage your data across multiple machines. Plus with their new mobile iPhone App, I can quickly load and view the majority of documents while away from a computer. Other than slow sync times due to my occasionally slow internet connection, I couldn’t find a single flaw in the service. If you constantly move data between two or more machines, give this a shot!

Links: GetDropbox.com
Video: What is Dropbox?

Note: This article was co-written and edited by Sahas Katta.

The iPhone App Store has a variety of  unique applications and Air Mouse Pro is one of those special ones. It literally turns your iPhone touch screen display into a wireless mouse and keyboard for your computer. The App is compatible with both Macintosh and Windows computers. It’s easy to use and offers just about all the functionality one would possibly need.

By default it offers the ability to point, click, scroll, type with the onscreen keyboard, and use hand motions to control cursor. It’s also been neatly designed to change the set of controls presented to you depending on the type of application you happen to be using. For example, if you were in the standard view it would show function keys, enter, home, delete, and escape. If you switch to the web view, the commands change to the Back, Forward, Home, Refresh, Stop, Bookmark, and Search buttons. And once again if you were handling media, the keys would change to Play, Pause, Previous Track, Next Track, Mute, and a few more. Most App Developers usually squeeze every button possible into onto a single screen. Fortunately the developers of this app kept usability in mind and kept things clean, organized, and simple. The alternate screen views will help you be more productive.

To get the Air Mouse Pro to work, you’ll actually need to install a small program on your computer named Air Mouse Server. It uses your local Wi-Fi network to establish a connection between your iPhone and your computer. The desktop server program includes options to select hot keys for specific programs and modify the sensitivity of the track pad.

There are a couple of ways to use the Air Mouse Pro. First it can be used as a touch pad, similar to the functionality on a laptop. The second method is to hold down a finger and wave the phone in the air to utilize the iPhone’s accelerometer. The touch pad method was practical and worked fairly well, but on the other hand the accelerometer method was a bit of a gimic. It was quite rather difficult to use. Finally, you’ll also be able to input text using the iPhone built-in on-screen keyboard.

Overall, Air Mouse Pro is a great app and does what it was designed to do, except for the accelerometer portion. The user interface is clean, fancy, and just works. This is especially handy for presentations and for those with Media Center PCs. It is available from the App Store for $2.99.

Links: Air Mouse Pro (iTunes Link)

Just like the standard SanDisk Cruzer, the Ultra Backup model retains a the same traditional form factor. The Ultra Backup is a bit larger the standard Cruzer, but makes up for the size difference with faster data transfer speeds. I copied copy a 465MB file over to the drive in about 30 seconds writing at speeds reaching 15MB/s. Copying a 700MB file off the flash drive also took 30 seconds with a read speed of about 24MB/s. The USB connector recedes into the plastic casing when not in use. A pleasant orange LED flashes when data transfer is in progress.

The best part of this flash drive is the backup utility that doesn’t require installing any software. The entire application resides and runs off the flash drive itself. The first time the Backup Button is used to launch the utility, a quick setup will automatically determine what files should be included in the backup. The interface is user friendly for even the most novice computer users. If you wish to further customize what should be included in the backup, there’s a easy configuration tool to select types of files such as text, music, videos etc. The data is also organized on the flash drive retaining folder structure, which makes things easier when retrieving a file.

Asides from the Backup functionality, the flash drive is still works as a normal flash drive should. Users do have the ability to disable the U3 Launcher, however that would mean that the Backup button would be rendered useless. Some password protection settings are also thrown in for additional security. Your files will most likely be safe if the average person finds your flash drive, but that’s probably not the case if it falls into the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. The Ultra Backup also features a built in Application Store which lists tons of games, media software, and other random tools. For the most part, just about all of the tools were ridiculously over priced and just seemed like an major waste of time to even try. There are fortunately a few good application such as Firefox listed.

Overall the SanDisk Ultra Backup is a reliable, fast, and easy to use flash drive. The Backup utility is the highlight and is excellent for making a copy of important documents in case of data loss. I definitely found the convenience of the physical Backup button useful. SanDisk offers the flash drive in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities for $49.99, $97.99, $166.99, and $277.99. Yes, those MSRPs are a bit ridiculous. If you pick it up from stores such as Amazon.com, it’s available for a fraction of the price.

Links: SanDisk.com Ultra Backup
Buy: Ultra Backup for $29 (no tax + ships free)

In the past I highly recommended AVG Free to just about anyone who was looking for an alternative to the $40-50 per year you would need to pay for either a McAfee or Symantec product. AVG is still a great product, however Microsoft Security Essentials is just a lot more convenient. The installer file size varies between a 5-10MB download based on which version of Windows you are running. The installation process is simple and quick. The user interface makes sense without any confusing technical terms. The program receives updated virus definitions automatically through the built in Windows Update tool to simplify things even further. Windows XP, Vista, and 7 all have a built-in Firewall, the addition of this component completes the entire security package. If you don’t have any anti-virus or anti-spyware protection software running on your computer, there’s no excuse to not try Microsoft’s free solution.

Download: Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft most likely is offering this deal to get as many customers switched over to Windows 7 as possible, especially after the widely dreaded Windows Vista. In addition, with Apple selling its latest iteration, Snow Leopard, for just $30, this is a great idea. If you don’t know if your machine supports Windows 7, try running Upgrade Advisor, which will check your system configuration and hopefully give you some good news. To get your copy for $30, just click on the links below!

Links: Win741.com | Windows 7 Student Discount

And that’s not all, if your field of study is any type of technical or engineering majors, you’re eligible for an even better deal. If you sign up with IEEE for a $30 membership, which will last for the rest of the year, you will have access to tons of Microsoft software including Windows 7 Professional x64. (That’s the full edition! Not upgrade version from the deal above.) Signing up as a student using your school’s ‘.edu’ email address and selecting your school from the selector. After about a week, you’ll get an email from MSDNAA giving you a username and password to access and download Windows 7.

Links: IEEE.org Register [via SlickDeals]

Both deals are independent of each other. I’ve personally tried the 2nd option, the IEEE discount, as a student at UC Davis and it worked perfectly. I’ve also purchased Office 2007 through the Ultimate Steal and it worked perfectly. I haven’t had a reason to try the Win741 deal since I already am running Windows 7, but Microsoft officially tweeted about it, so it should be completely safe.

Update 10.05.09: Some of you had emailed in notifying us that Windows 7 was removed from the IEEE MSDNAA list. I took a look into it and it was indeed removed. I decided to shoot an email to IEEE, and here’s there official response:

Microsoft has removed Windows 7 temporarily from this benefit. Management are currently having discussions on the direction they will take with this offer. We regret the inconvenience and will let you know Microsoft’s decision on restoring Windows 7 in this offer for students pursuing technical studies. – Denise Christian, Senior Customer Service Representative, IEEE Computer Society

So at this time, there is no information as to whether it will be put back up anytime soon. For now you folks will have to stick to getting Windows 7 home Premium through the Win711 offer.

Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast; Time Machine with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with Exposé integration; QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that is up to 50 percent faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. System applications including Finder, Mail, iCal®, iChat® and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications.

Don’t know if your computer is compatible with the new OS? It’s quite simple to figure that out. Just click on “About This Mac” from the “Apple Menu.” If you are running Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard on an Intel based machine, you are good to go! All you’ll have to do is purchase Snow Leopard and pop in the disk to upgrade! So what are you waiting for? Head on over to Apple’s Online Store which even guarantees FREE delivery to your door on August 28th, 2009!

Buy: Snow Leopard – Apple Store | Snow Leopard – Amazon
More Info: $10 Up-To Date Program | Snow Leopard Info

Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate

To be eligible for this deal, you must have university email address at a ‘.edu’ domain and must be enrolled in at least 0.5 units of course work. We highly recommend taking advantage of this deal since the next cheapest Microsoft Office bundle, the Student and Teacher Edition, costs over $80 and only includes four applications. And if $60 bucks is still too much, the next best alternative is Open Office which is an open source office suite available for download at no cost. In case you are wondering, Open Office is completely legal and is distributed by Sun Microsystems, however I still recommend Office Ultimate for $60.

Buy Now: TheUltimateSteal.com

Modifying Vista’s Shortcut Icon Overlay:

1. Download ‘shortcut-icon-changer.zip‘ and Extract it
2. Close all unnecessary applications except this page
3. Copy ‘Arrow.ico’ into the ‘C:\Windows\’ folder
4. Double-click on ’shortcut-icon-changer.reg’
5. Say ‘Yes’ to accept the changes being made

The setup is now complete, to see the new icon in action you can either reboot your machine or end and restart the “explorer.exe” process in the Windows Task Manager. If you wish to use another ‘.ico’ icon overlay instead of the one provided, just rename it to Arrow.ico and place it in the ‘C:\Windows\’ folder.

Download: shortcut-icon-changer.zip

Notice: Keep in mind that we only provide tweaks that are safe. If something provided here was to result in damaging your machine, we are not responsible. If you need help or have any questions, just leave us a comment below. We’d be glad to help!

When Microsoft Released Service Pack 1 for Vista to Windows Update on March 18th, I upgraded immediately. The process took a while to download since the servers were being hit hard by the large amount people trying to get a hold of the update file. After the download it took about one and a half hour to completely install. It required a few clicks of the “next” button to begin the installation. The computer will be unusable during the process. After it was complete, I was disappointed to find that it was now taking over 5 minutes to start up my machine. It normally took about 2 minutes. In addition there were absolutely no recognizable visual changes. After a few days of use, the performance of my machine drastically changed. Since the upgrade had deleted Vista’s pefetching, caching, and indexing databases, they had to be rebuilt. Today my machine starts up at least 30 seconds faster than it did before SP1. Shut Down, reboot, and suspend speeds have also improved greatly. Launching applications such as Phtotoshop CS3 has become much faster. The best part is that my system hasn’t crashed even once since upgrading. Previously I usually sat staring at blue screens at least a couple of times each week.

Beginning next month, Service Pack 1 will automatically be installed onto your system if you have Auto Updating enabled. However if you want to go ahead and get it now, just launch Windows Update from Vista’s Control Panel and click on check for updates. If it doesn’t appear make sure you have all the critical updates installed. Once you hit install it will close all your programs and then begin the process. The duration it will take to complete will vary depending on the performance of your machine. I was lucky not to run into any major issues whatsoever, however some have complained about major fatal errors. Despite those complains, the majority of those who have upgraded have done so successfully.

Links: Windows Vista Blog

Earlier today Apple announced the iPhone 2.0 software and the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). A beta version of the iPhone 2.0 software will be available today, however the finalized version won’t be available to consumers until June. The phone will also be getting much demanded business features such as the compatibility to function with the widely used Microsoft Exchange Servers, which will bring wireless push email, contacts, calendars, and access to encrypted private networks.

“We’re excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Steve Jobs – Apple’s CEO.
“iPhone’s enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device.”

The iPhone SDK is available for download for free. With the SDK they’ll have access to the iPhone Simulator and all the information they’ll need to create native applications and distribute it through the Application Store for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Apple boasts that their Multi-Touch interface, Core Animation, storage space, 3-axis accelerometer, and triangular cellular tower locater will allow creation of even more unique and powerful iPhone Apps.

Developers who create iPhone Applications will be able to retain 70% of the sales revenue of the amount sold through the new Apps Store. Developers will also have to purchase either a $99 standard license or a $299 enterprise license. In addition to the SDK-related content, the iPhone will also be getting other heavily demanded features such as the ability to view PowerPoint, Word, and Excel Documents and to mass delete messages. Anyways for the rest of you folks that aren’t interested in make applications but instead using them you’ll have to wait another three months for the final upgrade.

Video: March 6th Event with Steve Jobs
Links: iPhone Dev Program | iPhone Enterprise | Apple iPhone

Earlier today, Microsoft announced that Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista has been finalized and was released to manufacturers today. Unfortunately customers won’t have access to the upgrade which brings “enhanced reliability, security, compatibility and performance” until March. Consumer using the auto-update feature won’t receive the upgrade until April unless they manually download and install the patch. Microsoft claims performance improvements by as much as 50% for tasks such as moving large files around your machine or network. Today’s launch of SP1 to manufacturers indicates that new computers produced by companies such as Dell, HP, and Sony soon be available with the upgraded Vista pre-installed. In addition, new shipments of licensed retail boxes of Vista will come with SP1.

Hopefully the changes will help fix many of the major problems which a fairly large portion of customers are experiencing. SP1 for Vista will probably still not help it gain a lead over the performance XP will be offering with the upcoming Service Pack 3. Despite this, Vista users should be glad that at least some improvements have been made and will be available within a foreseeable date.

Links: Windows Vista Blog Post | Microsoft Vista

If you are an iPhone owner and you have not already heard, a major update (v1.1.3) became available last Tuesday during MacWorld. The update brings many anticipated features such as the ability to SMS multiple people at once and watch iTunes Rental Movies. The upgrade added an easier interface for bookmarking web pages through the Safari browser and the ability to add shortcuts to websites called “web clips” to home screen. The home screen also got a bit of a makeover, now allowing icons to be re-arranged and moved to multiple pages.

“iPhone doesn’t stand still—we’re making it better and better all the time,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve delighted millions of users with this revolutionary and magical product and it’s great to share these improvements with them.”

The most notable upgrade is probably the Maps application. The iPhone can now utilize cell phone tower data to triangulate your exact location. We tested this feature a few times, but unfortunately it didn’t function as well as I had hoped for it to perform. In most scenarios the best it could do was to narrow down my location the the city I was in. In reality it wouldn’t be of much help. Hopefully it will do a better job when it’s used in areas with stronger cell phone signals. Another neat addition to the Maps was the new “hybrid” view feature which will display satellite images with a overlay of street names.

If you’ve got an iPhone and you would like to upgrade it, just connect it to a machine running the latest version of iTunes (v7.6) and press “Check for Updates” on the iPhone page. It should download a file about 150MB in size and then install the new firmware. It took us over 10 minutes to update our unit. Although it was successful, the installer wasn’t very clear about what was going on during certain points. Just be sure not to disconnect your iPhone if it is taking too long since that could brick the unit. Anyways if you have an iPhone spend a few minutes “upgrading” since it’s got quite a few neat features.

Links: Apple iTunes | Apple iPhone

Although the iPod Touch features just about all the hardware components that the iPhone has, except for the cellular chip, but despite this it lacks many essential applications. Fortunately Steve Jobs came to the rescue yesterday when he announced a major software update which would bring Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes to the iPod Touch, brining on par with the iPhone. In addition the upgrade will also include some of the features that were added to the iPhone upgrade such as web clippings, customizable homepages, and iTunes movie rentals support. Unfortunately the upgrade isn’t free as previous firmwares have been. Newly purchased devices will have the upgrade pre-installed, however current owners will need to pay $19.99 to get the extra features.

“These amazing new mobile applications make iPod touch not only the best iPod, but the best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With its revolutionary touch interface and software, plus its stunning 3.5 inch screen, iPod touch is evolving into the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform of the 21st century.”

With the new Mail app and a WiFi connection, you now can check your POP3 or IMAP email accounts to read and compose messages. The Maps feature can now track your location using an IP Trace via a WiFi Hotspot and offers a Hybrid view to see Satellite Images and Street Names at the same time. And rental movies purchased from iTunes will transfer to your iPod Touch, but will retain the same 30-day retention and 24-hour limit after playback begins. This is a good improvement, but it should have already been in the iPod Touch when it was first released. Secondly the fact that they are charging $20 for the upgrade is even more annoying. Especially since newly purchased units with the upgrade will retain the same price. If you just purchased your unit and it is still eligible for return try to see if the Apple Store will offer the software upgrade for free, if they don’t agree return the unit and get another one.

Links: Apple iPod Touch | What’s New

Yesterday, Apple announced that the final release of the Mac OS X series, Leopard, will go on sale on Friday October 26th 2007. OS X Leopard has over 300 new features including desktop Stacks, a newly designed finder, QuickLook, Spaces, and Time Machine.

“Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version [...] for just $129.”

Just to go over some of the features, we’re going to start with Stacks. Stacks allows accessing and placing files right onto the new 3D dock to keep the desktop clean. With one click, the Stack will spread out cleanly, displaying all the files in it. The finder now borrows a neat feature from iTunes, Cover Flow. In addition, once setup, Mac users can easily search, browse, copy, and transfer files between any other Mac or even a Vista machine. Another feature which will save a lot of time is Quick Look. This pre-installed application will allow fully viewing any image, pdf, or document and even watching or listening to music or videos without having to startup the associated application. This means you can instantly open up a Word Document to read without having to startup Word. However if you wish to modify or edit the file, you will have to open the actual program. If you have used Linux, you probably know that most distributions allow creating multiple virtual desktops. Spaces does just the same thing for Macs, except now it is much more interactive as well as powerful. You can now do neat things such as drag a window from one virtual desktop to another. Although there are ton of more neat features, the final important feature we’ll touch on is Time Machine. This application is a built-in backup tool which allows visually browsing your backups. Instead of having to an entire system restore, Time Machine will allow searching or browsing through your archives to bring the file you wanted “back to the future.” The more hard drive space you offer Time Machine, the better of a job it can do creating more detailed backups.

As mentioned it will be available on the 26th of October at 6:00pm for $129 (single license). Apple is already accepting pre-orders through their online store. If you happened to purchase a new Mac after October 1st, Apple will include the upgrade for just $10 (shipping charge).

Links: Apple OS X Leopard | See 300 New Features
Pre-Order: $109 OS X Leopard by Apple (save $20)

Open Source applications are a great cost-free alternative to commercial applications. In many instances they are even better than paid versions of the same application. Today we bring you a list of a great applications from browsers to video players for both Windows XP/Vista and Macintosh OS X. All items on the list of course are completely FREE and have NO adware or spyware.

Web Browsing:

• Mozilla Firefox – tabbed browsing, customizable, and large plugin library – (Win+Mac)
• Camino – mozilla-like mac-styled browser with rss, spell check, tabs & more – (Mac)

Email:

• Mozilla Thunderbird – secure emails, fight spam, tags, rss, and more – (Win+Mac)

RSS Reader:

• FeedReader – handle large amount of feeds, simple, auto updates, and fast – (Win)
• Vienna – rss + atom, tabbed viewer, customize layouts, and global search – (Mac)
• RSSOwl – opml, bookmarks, export function, search, and alerts – (Win+Mac)

Instant Messaging:

• Pidgin – all in one chat client supporting over 15 major chatting services – (Win)
• Adium – also an all in one client, which supports 13 chatting protocols – (Mac)

BitTorrent:

• Azureus – very powerful, customizable, plugins, and tracker support – (Win+Mac)

Media Player:

• Miro – plays any video file, hd content, free tv, youtube downloads, and torrents – (Win+Mac)
• VLC – plays tons of media formats, powerful converter, and streams anything – (Win+Mac)

Office Suites:

• OpenOffice – word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, and illustrator – (Win+Mac)
• AbiWord – a powerful word processor which supports many formats – (Win+Mac)
• Bean – a simple and free word processor more feature packed than text edit – (Mac)

Virus Scan:

• ClamWin – great virus protection tool for windows based machiens – (Win)
• ClamAV – anti-virus scanning tool for Unix-based machines – (Mac)

DVD Rippers / Encode:

• Handbrake – rips and converts to any format. supports psp, ipod, and iphone – (Win+Mac)
• Media Coder – rip, encode anything to anything, simple encoding for portable devices – (Win)

CD / DVD Burners:

• Burn – burn data, video, audio, and images. also can copy discs – (Mac)
• InfraRecorder – burn any type of data or media, dual layer support, and create ISOs – (Win)

Sound Editor + Recorder:

• Audacity – a powerful sound recorder and editing tool – (Win+Mac)

FTP Client:

• Filzezilla – supports ftp, ftps, sftp, and supports large file transfers. can resume files – (Win+Mac)
• Cyberduck – supports standard ftp protocols and integrated with OS X features – (Mac)

Photo Editors:

• Gimp – great for creating and editing images. good photoshop alternative – (Win+Mac)
• Paint.net – a powerful windows photo editing / manipulation tool – (Win)
• Seashore – a mac os x photo editor with tons of features – (Mac)

Publishing Tools:

• Scribus - neat professional publishing and page layout tool – (Win+Mac)

File Tools:

• 7-zip – unzip or zip up just about any type of package you can imagine – (Win)
• Unarchiver – can unzip anything and works better than OS X’s default tool – (Mac)
• Eraser – securely delete any file from your HDD beyond point of recovery – (Win)
• Permanent Eraser – completely wipe any data using DoD specifications – (Mac)

PDF Tools:

• PDFCreator – create pdf files from any just about program that can print – (Win)

These are just a few of the tons of programs out there. We specifically choose these since we felt that these will be useful for most people. If you know of any neat open source applications or ones better than the ones mentioned in our article, please feel free to let us know by replying in the comments!

About three days ago, Microsoft announced a very unusual deal for students on Office 2007. Starting on September 20th, Any student with a valid “.edu” e-mail address will have the opportunity to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for just $60. Offer ends in April 2008. For those of you thinking this is probably just another cut down version such as Home & Student Edition ($100), which has only the basic for processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, WRONG! The downloadable Office Ulitmate 2007 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, and InfoPath! Although you probably won’t be using half those applications, we recommend going with this offer.

If you wish to grab this offer it’s available on TheUlimateSteal.com. As for those of you who wish to use an alternative to avoid even the $60, we would recommend OpenOffice which includes just about all the programs you would ever need and is completely open source, therefore free.

P.S. Don’t try lying to get this offer since Microsoft will charge the full $679 price if your student enrollment fails to validate!

Links: TheUtlimateSteal | Compare Office 2007 Editions

One of my favorite FTP Clients, Filezilla, recently got updated to version 3. The application, which began development in 2001, has now reached a new level. The client is now cross platform, supporting Linux and Mac OS X machines in addition to Windows. And to top that, Filezilla is still open source.

The application has received a makeover and now has a bunch of new features. It remains easy enough for novices to use, but is packed with advance features. In addition to FTP, it also allows using FTP over SSL/TLS and SSH FTP. The client includes a Site Manager for saving addresses and passwords, supports pausing/resuming files even larger than 4GB, and features a neatly organized transfer queue. In addition Filezilla supports “dragging and dropping” of files in and out of the program, configuring upload and download speeds, and plenty more. As this application is open source, it remains entirely FREE. In my opinion it is much better than many paid FTP clients such as cuteFTP and others.

Download: Filezilla | Links: Official Site